Griffiths felt he wasn’t give a chance by Jones

Mike Simmonds

Full-back Scott Griffiths felt he was never really given a chance at Kenilworth Road by Town manager Nathan Jones.

As expected, the 30-year-old wasn’t offered a new deal by the Luton chief, after not featuring in a first team game since Jones took over back in January.

“It’s a manager prerogative if that’s how they feel is the right way to move forward, but it would have been nice to have been given half a chance.”

Scott Griffiths

Griffiths, who went on loan to Woking for a month, before returning to undergo a minor operation on his knee, said: “From day one, he didn’t really seem interested and never seemed like he wanted to give me a chance.

“After the first training session, he said that I did well, but he knows what the other two lads can do, meaning (Dan) Potts and Howellsy (Jake Howells), both who could cover left back, but he hadn’t seen me.

“So he wanted me to go out on loan so he could see what I’ve got and as far as I’m aware, nobody came to see me at the games.

“It was a bit frustrating and seemed like it was a bit of a way of saying ‘we’re trying to get you away from the club for a bit so I can concentrate on the boys that I want to work with,’ and a nice way of saying ‘I don’t really want you around the club at the time,’ that’s what it felt like.”

Griffiths, who played 115 times for Town, scoring three goals, didn’t think he had a real opportunity to show Jones what he was capable of in training either.

He continued: “The first thing he pretty much said to us when he came in at the start of his time was everybody gets a clean slate, and from my experience, there was almost no truth to it.

“I know some had a clean slate, but as far as I’m concerned, I never got a look in.

“I wasn’t really allowed to train with the first team along with some of the other lads, as I was training with the youth team most of the time, unless he needed me to fill in for someone.

“Between December and the end of the season I trained with the first team maybe 10 times.

“I know I went out on loan for a month, but you still need to be bonding with your own players and staying in the loop, and I didn’t feel like I was being let to stay in the loop or bond with the new players properly.

“Eventually you get to know them, but by then, you feel like a bit of an outcast, so it didn’t go quite as I had hoped.”

Griffiths was also left disappointed that he wasn’t able to show his worth in a match situation either, as he said: “It would have been nice to have been played in a game, because how much can you tell from a couple of training sessions?

“When I did eventually get a reserve game when I came back from my operation, I got put in, after having not really had a proper training session, into left midfield which isn’t even my proper position.

“I’m not saying he (Jones) made his mind based on that, I think he made up his mind long before because whenever a manager comes in, they want to bring in their own players which is fair enough.

“It’s happened to myself before, I’ve been brought in in place of others and have had others brought in in place of me.

“So I understand that happens and it’s a manager prerogative if that’s how they feel is the right way to move forward, but it would have been nice to have been given half a chance.”